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No longer on the river and, again, an empty nester. Back to living on Fleming Island and making some more friends!

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Saturday sittin' on the river

Well, I guess it is time for me to go to the h-o-m-e....In anticipation for friends coming over to go swimming today, I decided to make a pan of brownies for dessert. There were cans of whipping cream left here from the dinner on Thursday last week which would taste so good on brownies. Well, it has been awhile since I baked anything....already defending myself here....I goofed! Instead of putting a quarter cup of water into the mixture, I misread the amount and put in 1 1/4 cups of water. OOOPS! Now what? Well, I put it in the oven anyway and we will see what happens with it. Chocolate soup anyone? Nuts! It is heck to get old....
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Since our plans were changed for tonight by the cancelled concert, some are thinking of coming over here to go swimming. I do not know how many to expect so might just order pizza for supper rather than try to cook something. It is not my day to be cooking, I am afraid! "Hello, Pizza Hut? It's me again....." It sure would be lovely to be sitting under the stars at Metro Park tonight and listening to the orchestra, but it is not to be!
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The river is active with boats today, many pulled up to fish. Some were the noisy kind that certainly scared the fish away. The water level is higher now that the moon is no longer full, so I do not have to look at the nasty underbelly exposed during lower tides. Wednesday night was our condo BOD meeting and I arrived just in time for them to adjourn. It seems they began 30 minutes earlier than advertised (oops!) so finished before I could return after choir practice. One of the guys told me they assigned a job to me, to contact the ceramic tile cleaners to come and give us a price. See what happens when you miss a meeting??? The same folks who cleaned my rugs last week also clean the tile, and in fact, did clean the area around the elevator once before, when they cleaned and refinished the floor in my river room. Aaron was going to come Friday but they got too busy so plans are now to come on Monday afternoon. It will be nice to see the tile cleaned up again, after so many people have moved out and in, leaving black tire marks from the handcarts .
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Because our concert plans were changed, Justin told me he was going to church tonight rather than Sunday morning. He likes to sleep late I guess. Even though worship does not start until 10:30, and he lives only blocks from church. As long as he gets there, this is what matters. I only hope the weather holds and those of us who are going to swim and sit poolside can actually do so. If the weather does not cooperate, we can be thankful to not be under the skies downtown when it begins to rain!
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Last night was our Youth Group gathering here, complete with Pizza Hut and salad. I thought Kathy might like something other than pizza so I bought a bag of lettuce and some low calorie dressing which we all enjoyed. Kathy had the bright idea of adding olives to her salad so I did, too, making it more tolerable. Brian had the idea of ordering two Panormous pizzas and end up taking an entire one home with him. Evidently not everyone was as hungry as Brian was! Earlier in the day I had gotten the Youth Group newsletter via e-mail so I printed it off for Brian to use. Pastor Kuske wanted to show the kids the website just for young people the WELS has, so I set it up on my desktop and turned the monitor around for viewing in the river room. Sadly, only two kids came which can leave the leaders feeling quite defeated. Hopefully with some regular activities and promotion "we" can stimulate some more interest, like the kids used to have "back in the old days" at church.
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The little newsletter mentioned some interesting topics such as the age group referred to as the Mosaic Generation. Nothing to do with Moses, I fear. This age group was born between 1984 and 2002, I do not know who made this decision, but that is what the article stated. General statements attributed to this Mosaic Generation: they are comfortable with contradiction, post-modern, exhibiting non-linear thinking, eclectic in lifestyle, fluid in their personal relationships, with cut-and-paste values, and a hybrid spiritual perspective. The discussion that followed, led by Brian, who teaches sociology and similar subjects to high school kids, was how people are so connected now days that we are disconnected. I have said this for a long time, beginning with the portable CD players with ear buds. Very isolating. He asked them about what it says when you take a phone call from one person while talking to another---what does it possibly say about the first caller? Or, how people seldom make eye contact, particularly not taking their eyes or fingers off their cell phones. Our conversations, especially this mosaic generation, have been reduced to short bits and pieces, often over the top of the other person's bits and pieces (I knew this too!!!), and I threw in the fact that we speak in sound bytes now. Not me, of course, I can just go on and on and on.....In fact, I do!Anyway, I just found this entire conversation incredibly interesting and more than a little frightening, with little hope of reversal.
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My sister, Lori, called me a while ago and was rejoicing because she had tracked down an old folk song we used to sing together, called "Jamie". My nephew is named Jamie, so I think we should sing it at his wedding. Lori tried to play it over the phone but it didn't work, so I found it myself on youtube and we listened together----no eye contact but certainly our hearts were! She said she had been searching for it since I was there last year and was just so happy to finally scare it up. Lori is going to have David learn to play it for us, so I cannot wait to get out there. I believe I have the original album in my possession but will wait for Justin to come and pull it out of the closet for me. I also got a wonderful invitation via e-mail from my friend, Linda O., at Victory. She wanted to know if I was interested in going to a Pops concert on Memorial Day with her, but I will be in New York at that time. Nuts! But I was seriously tickled to be asked by her!!!
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My toes are cold, I hope it is not chilly outside. The sun needs to be on me if I go into the pool so it had better break from of the clouds and warm things up. There is a little breeze and little sun. Perhaps I had better get out there now while it is still showing itself!